


Blow The Man Down

by anna_sun



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alliances, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Bets & Wagers, Conspiracy, Drinking Games, F/F, F/M, Fights, Historical Inaccuracy, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Multiple Pairings, POV Multiple, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Teasing, Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-05-26 07:51:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14996246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_sun/pseuds/anna_sun
Summary: Golden Age of Piracy AU.Captain Holt, of the Blue Falcon. Terry is quatermaster, Jake is boatswain, Charles is the cook, Rosa is feared among all, Gina owns a tavern, Hitchcock and Scully own a brothel. And Amy? Well, Amy is just the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the New World.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> This fic, set in 1715, was heavily (like, heavilyyyyyy) inspired by the show Black Sails, but no prior visioning of anything is required to understand it. I'll just drop some pirate and sailor knowledge on you right now, and that'll be that.
> 
> Captains (Holt) are always elected by their pirate crews, as well as quartermasters. The quartermaster (Terry) is like a second in command, but most importantly he’s the entire crew's voice when it comes to doing stuff like making all the strategical plans, and like, confronting the Captain if he's being wack. The boatswain (Jake) is in charge and responsible for the actual ship, the hull, all its components. Good? Good.
> 
> Oh, and Ellis Island = Island around New York that was actually a gateway for immigrants but get ur imagination going and BOOM it's a big thing with beaches and trees and people doing commerce situated around like, the Bahamasss. In Black Sails, it's called Nassau. For the first couple days this was posted I'd kept it Nassau, but I decided to change it.
> 
> Anyways. Those are pretty much the only things essential to understanding the fic, really. But if you got q's, I'm always quick to give some a's.
> 
> !! Have a pleasant read. Hopefully it doesn't suck!

The Blue Falcon, with its two square-rigged masts and cargo capacity of over a hundred tons, was not only one of the biggest ships in the New World; it was the most respected of all. Docked upon the white sands of the island of Ellis, it was a true wonder to look at, and could make any man feel small, even the ones with arms as wide as any of the ship’s thirty-two canons. Yes, the thing was powerful, looked sublime, and it made one wonder, when looking up at it from the shore, or watching its silhouette gently swaying upon the waves from one of Madame Linetti’s bedroom windows, how such a ship could have ever been built by the fragile hands of men.

It also was, admittedly, a real pain in the ass to unload.

The sun had risen over the foremast some time ago, now, and it shone unapologetically upon the bare backs of the hard-working crewmen. Orders had been given, and they were set to stay in Ellis for a week or so. The crew’s Chef, one named Charles Boyle, and none other than the boatswain, and his best of friends aboard, Jacob Peralta, were unloading the hull of its various crates and barrels of food. It was nothing if not a hard and tiring task, and Peralta, exhausted, decided to lean on one of the barrels, favouring a moment to catch his breath.

“Heard about Jeffords?” Boyle asked then, conversationally, and Peralta shot him a look.

“What about?”

“He went and caught the best disease of ‘em all,” Boyle smiled with an excited glint in his gaze, and when Peralta gave no further reaction, he almost seemed disappointed, and sighed. “He fell in  _love_.”

Peralta couldn’t help but laugh. Thinking about their quartermaster doing anything other than giving out orders or shaming crewmembers for their stupidity was hard on the imagination already, but to even begin to think the man could feel such a sweet thing as love? It seemed almost impossible.

“The fuck? Who with?”

Boyle, clearly eager to gossip, also stopped working to look at his crewmate with wide-open eyes. He then punctuated every word of the next sentence out of his mouth, “One of Hitchcock and Scully’s girls.”

“No!” Peralta stood up straight, thick eyebrows shooting almost all the way up to the mess of hair on his head. “You’re a fucking liar. Jeffords, in love with a whore? Have you  _seen_  how the man looks at us when we even go there? I’m certain he hates just the  _idea_  of them. He would never.”

Boyle shrugged, then spat onto the sand.

“It’s what I heard!”

He then proceeded to try and defend his source, attempting to prove how reliable it was, but Peralta stopped listening halfway through. He could see below on the decks and slowly approaching the figure of a man he recognized but too well, even from afar. Swearing under his breath, he tapped Boyle’s shoulder so that he’d stop talking and instead help him with one of the bigger crates.

“Captain,” was the only needed explanation for it, and Boyle swore too, before he crouched to finally grab the heavy box from underneath. They both groaned when it was time to lift it and slide it into the small boat. Or, well, Peralta groaned, and Boyle more or less shrieked from the effort it took.

“Shit of a life,” Peralta complained with heavy breaths, and when he looked around them and realized they weren’t even halfway done unloading the cargo, he resisted the urge to scream.

Still, they moved on to a less heavy barrel, and then another, before the Captain even got close to them. There were sweat stains on his shirt, which was loosely tucked in the various belts and buckles tied around his waist, carrying an insane number of knives, and holsters, and guns. Always ready for a fight, their Captain.

There was a moment’s pause when he arrived, and then he gave a small nod as a greeting, before he spoke, a tad of the accent from his past days as a gentleman still perceptible in his tone, “I see you’re behind on schedule.”

Peralta put on a small smile.

“We’re only two men – “

“We all do with what we have,” Holt interrupted. “I thought you were aware our crew is short a few men. Or do you not recall the fourteen brothers we lost in our last endeavour?” 

“If I  _recall_  – ” Peralta gave a short laugh. It earned him nothing but a hard glare. “Yes, I remember them. I also remember there are dozens other fucking men ready to join any crew, right here, right now on the Island!"

A particularly strong gush of wind accompanied Peralta’s words, making one of the main sails flap loudly above of them. They all felt thankful for the breeze. 

“Never trust these fools. All they want to do is fill their damn pockets. I need nothing but real pirates on my crew! Otherwise, we’re nothing but thieves.”

Boyle cleared his throat.

“Real pirates? What are real pirates?” He paused. “ _Murderous_  thieves?”

Holt was always angry. Expressionless, ruthless, and both agile and strong, he made every single merchant ship feared the day they would spot the Blue Falcon’s sails in the horizon, knowing for certain it would soon bring Holt’s wrath to fall upon them. His reputation for anger and fatality was such that it eventually reached even far beyond the Mediterranean Seas, the tales of horror, of blood, of mercilessness and of death finding their way to the ears of little boys and girls in places as far as in Greek, French, and Italian castles.

But even in the midst of a fight, Peralta had never quite seen his Captain look as angry as he did now. Why? Because now, he laughed, a crazy sound that sounded distorted to many around them. To hear Holt utter out a laugh was even such a rarity that, suddenly, many ears were carefully listening their way, hands having stopped nearly all work.

“Mister Boyle,” he said, after a pause. “I never took you for a half-wit before. What are real pirates? Real pirates do not fight to fill their pockets. And we  _certainly_  do not fight to kill. Any man who takes pleasure in such a thing is no man, but animal.”

Jake swallowed a lump in his throat.

“Then what do we fight for?”

“Revenge, for some,” Holt said. “Freedom. Peace. We fight for a life away from all their fucking rules, their egos, their wealth. We fight because we hate them all, all those hypocrites who call themselves ‘civilized’. We hate them just so, goddamn,  _much_.”

This brought on a loud cheer from the rest of the crew around them, tired men finding a last burst of energy within themselves to show support for the cause they’d chosen to pledge their lives to. The Captain seemed rather unmoved. 

“Get back at it!” He yelled after a moment, and the cheers slowly faded until all that could be heard were simple conversations between men at work. Most of them revolved around the question of whether or not Holt would ever snap and kill either Boyle, or Peralta. Some bets were made.

 "And Peralta, I assume you and your men will shortly be checking the rigging?"

"Aye, Captain." Peralta grinned. 

They all kept at it until the sun was behind them, eventually all convinced to stop by the harsh sound of the waves, white bubbles rolling and rolling onto themselves and gaining in intensity before crashing against the ship’s hull and the shore. A storm was on its way. Many could feel it in their veins; a sailor’s gut rarely ever lied. But the rain wouldn’t fall for another hour or so, and so, the men from almost all and every crew laid down their tools in favour of grabbing an already half-empty bottle of rum, or, for the more advanced, a pipe and some opium, in order to forget the hard truths of their lives. But the nightmares wouldn’t take over their troubled minds for at least another couple of hours. Now was the only time to truly rest.

Unless resting was out of the question. In that case, many would rather leave the tents and walk the short path up the beach, reach the tavern, and spend the night chanting loudly with other mates in the most lived establishment in all of Ellis.

Indeed, Madame Linetti’s tavern had been the first to be built from the ground up when the British first set foot on land. The establishment hosted many who needed things as simple as a well-earned drink or a bed for the night. Music, alcohol and laughter were kings among all.

That is until a fight broke down. There was  _always_  a fight.

***

The sound of glass shattering against a skull, the cheers and loud insults of drunkards, the abrupt stop of music from the men who'd been playing on strings. Every pirate in the place stopped what they were doing to stare at the infamous Rosa Diaz from The Vulture's crew, winning yet another fight.

"Ha!" Rosa boasted, raising the last end of a broken bottle of wine up high in the air. "Take that! Asshole!”

The man, who'd fallen onto the ground at the impact, slowly sat up and groaned as he brought a shaky hand to the top of his head, fingertips leaving coated in blood.

"Piss off, Diaz," he spat onto the ground, muttering the next words out of his mouth. "Can't take some f’cking banter.”

She laughed.

“Was it supposed to be funny?" She now addressed herself to the whole tavern, swinging her homemade weapon into the air as she talked. She might also have been slightly wobbling on her feet from the alcohol in her system, but that was nothing new. "I just don't  _appreciate_  shit-smelling ass cowards grabbing my ass like it fucking belongs to them! Next one who even  _tries_  this shit ain’t just gonna get hit, I'll shove this fucking bottle up high where the sun don't shine! Got it?!"

No direct answers were made but it seemed that most crews understood the threat and were in no obvious hurry to test its grounds.

Somewhat satisfied, Rosa nodded and carelessly let the bottle remains fall to the ground, before she started wobbling away. Unfortunately for her, as she got to the doorway, so did the owner.

Gina Linetti took one look at Rosa, glanced to her busted lip and the futile wound on her forehead, then rolled her eyes.

" _Again_?”

 

The moonlight peaked through the satin drapes of Gina’s bedroom, creating a faint glow behind Rosa’s mess of hair, and rendering the features of her face almost unreadable in the darkness. There was no guessing what Rosa was thinking about in these moments. Gina could do nothing but wipe the piece of cloth in her hand under the woman’s bottom lip, the red tint of the blood staining both the rag and Rosa’s chin, and give a teasing smile, before she spoke.

“This one got you pretty good.”

“Fucking ass,” Rosa groaned. “They always start some shit. Can’t just leave me alone.”

“But you always fight back good,” Gina said, “‘Show them who’s boss. Maybe just… without wrecking my place?”

She wet the cloth in the small barrel of water between them, before bringing it to Rosa’s face once again. She tried her best to be soft, but Rosa still winced when she got close to the cut on her forehead.

“It’s all I had on hand!” Rosa said. “But I’ll fucking pay it back. The bottle.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Gina smiled. Even in her vulgarity, Rosa was kind. “But now that you mention it…”

She dropped the rag once and for all before standing up, only to sit back down on the bed not far behind them.

“Maybe I’d care for more than money.”

“Gina…”

Gina sighed, dropping to her elbows to support the upper half on her body, already untying, slowly, the laces of her dress. If she played her cards right, Rosa would most definitely cave in. Their last time together had been sensational. Fantastic. Three (3) insane orgasms. She desperately wanted it to happen again, and again, and again.

“You know you want to.” She tried. “Why deny yourself something you crave? Wasn’t that the entire fucking point of them rebelling against the crown? So that we could do whatever the hell we please?”

Rosa laughed, as if to mock her argument, but stood up nevertheless, gaze inevitably dropping when Gina exposed the curve of her breast.

“Who said I craved you?” She got closer. “Careful, doll. I’m starting to think seeing me get rough might be making you feel things.”

Gina shrugged.

“I don’t deny it,” she said, laughed, as her right hand dropped to lift the edges of her dress above her knees, fingers itching to touch. Rosa kneeled at the foot of the bed.

“You’re a temptress. A siren.”

“As are you.”

“I’m barely – “

 _Knock knock_.

“Madame Linetti?” A head suddenly poked through the door, swiftly avoiding looking in their direction. “The Captaine of the Blue Falcon is here to see you.”

Gina sighed, then glanced at Rosa, who had already stood up, and crossed her arms over her chest. Well. Guess there wasn’t any chance of that happening tonight any more.

“I’ll be right there.”

 

***

Michael Hitchcock and Norm Scully were brothers who’d fought in the revolution. Once proper pirates, they’d clashed swords with some of the highest-ranked officers, had slaughtered and bled for their cause, for freedom from England, for freedom from all. Their names were uttered alongside some of the greatest legends out there, Flint and Teach and Bonny and Calico Jack, and although none spoke of the brothers’ minds as being grand as much as they did the others, they did praise Hitchcock and Scully’s strength. Their nerve. Their fury.

Once the dust settled, Hitchcock and Scully decided the sea wasn’t for them any more. Perhaps the waves were too harsh to older men. Or perhaps their big, fat legs had simply taken root, staying so much undivided time on land.

But no one remembers exactly how they came to own the brothel.   

The place roared with lust. With desire, with need, with noise. The main floor, filled with chairs and tables, had men eating their food and chatting to the sight of breasts, of women dressed in practically nothing, in sheer and lacy gowns, sitting atop their laps or parading around, always laughing, teasing, then leading them up the big staircase to the bedrooms. The music was loud, the fucking was loud, but the people were always the loudest.

“Don’t bullshit me!” Peralta, drunk, shouted at Hitchcock’s wet and rosy face. “I want the truth!”

Scully clasped a hand onto his shoulder, forcing him to step backwards and sit back down. Boyle, right beside him, continued to do nothing but eat bigger mouthfuls of his stew. At least he wasn’t in his upset stage of being intoxicated.

“We only know who our girls fuck. And we ain’t sharing the word.”

Peralta sighed.

“Can you at least tell if Jeffords has even been here?”

The brothers looked at each other for a brief moment, and it seemed an agreement was made.

“Fine.” Hitchcock spat. “Yes. We seen him.”

Peralta’s eyes opened wide, before a short laugh escaped him, and he brushed his shoulder with Boyle’s, as he gave a low whistle.

“Whoa. You were right! He might well be in love with a whore.”

Scully laughed.

“Love. Funny word.”

Peralta shot him a curious look but gave no further importance to the comment. Hitchcock and Scully were bizarre. Sometimes, he thought the war had probably scarred their brains for life.

Needless to say – after having gained the information he sought for, Peralta stood up to make his leave. But Hitchcock stopped him.

“You leaving without giving us nothing? How about you consider one of the girls?”

Boyle looked displeased.

“No! We have to rest for –“

“Maybe I will,” Peralta interrupted him, “Charles, my friend, maybe you should too. Yes? You won’t get better rest.”

Scully grinned.

“It’ll cost extra, but we can certainly get one of the girls to take the both of ‘ya up to a room and – “

“No! No!” Peralta yelled. “Not what I meant!”

Boyle laughed the odd way he did when in uncomfortable situations, and Peralta decided to look around, quickly finding a girl he found decently attractive. He pointed to her.

“What’s her name?”

“Oh,” Hitchcock glanced. “ _Sophia_.”

“Alright,  _Sophia_ ,” he smiled, already heading her way after having tapped both Scully and Boyle on their backs. “Here comes a good time.”

 

Charles Boyle stared at Peralta’s back as he quickly walked away, the sting from the hit of his friend’s palm on his rather sensitive backside remaining for a moment. He winced, then rubbed the bad spot.

“I’m sure he’ll spend enough for the both of us,” Boyle downed the remaining of his stew before standing, wiping his mouth, then saying his goodbyes to the brothers.

When he walked outside, it had started to rain. He didn’t mind it so. When you spend enough time on a ship, you quickly realize that any storm on land is nothing compared to the cold-bloodedness of the sea. What truly bothered him more was the darkness. He passed by endlessly black narrow alleys, and people coughing their lungs out, hidden in the obscurity, and frankly, the whole of it had him feeling shivers down to his bones. It was true that he was a pirate, by the definition of the word, but he certainly didn’t compare to what the civilized whispered about to scare children in their beds on gloomy nights.

“ _O – Sally Brown, you’re very pretty,”_ Charles started to sing. “ _Way – hay – roll and go!”_

He was a sailor at heart. A sailor who’d gotten tired of the crooked system of the trade, of the pay rates that rendered him almost poor, and the tax, and the fucking ranks. He hadn’t started out with the Blue Falcon, but Holt was the first one to ever let him cook for the crew, and ever since then, never once did he regret his decision to abandon his old way of life.

“ _Sweetest girl in all the valley_  – “

Boyle felt a sudden pressure on his front, before it was over-shadowed by a sharp pain at the back of his head, from the fact of it bouncing off the brick wall he was abruptly pushed into. He’d been walking with his hood raised above his head, staring at the ground, and so, hadn’t seen the ill-mannered stranger coming.

“Ow!” He cried. “I – I got nothing! Please!”

The person laughed, before backing off his personal space.

“Pup, I ain’t here to rob you.”

Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the alleyway, Boyle was able to connect in his mind the raspy female voice with the features of someone that was too well known around Ellis for him not to recognize.

“Shit -  you’re here to kill me!”

Boyle tried to duck and run away, but Rosa Diaz, without any sign of struggle, shoved him back against the wall.

“Stay,” she seemed to take wicked pleasure in addressing him like a dog. “A lady just wants to talk.”

“W – What about?”

“Tomorrow, at dawn. The wrecks, on the East bay.” She wiped some droplets of water off the collar of his coat. “Tell your quartermaster I need to speak with him.”

***

Back in the tavern, not in Madame Linetti’s bedroom quarters, but right above of it, in her office, Captain Holt was pacing back and forth. Outside, the rain had just started to pour, tap-tapping on the windows relentlessly, and Gina, sitting on the other side of the desk, stared.

“You know that I love you. That I respect you. But if you interrupted me during private hours to pace in front of my desk –“

“I have a proposition,” Holt interrupted. “A big one. Risky.”

Gina laid back in her chair, “Yes?”

“We’ve been partners for some time, now. I bring stolen goods to your door, and you use your father’s good name to sell them for profits in Port Royal. That is the way it has always been.”

“Yes, that’s the definition what I do with every other pirate Captain on this island. Your point?”

“Right,” Holt stopped walking. “But what if we could do more? What if you and I could make enough profit that we’d never have to steal again?”

“That’s absurd.”

“Perhaps not so much.”

Holt tried to reassemble his thoughts before speaking again. He had to thread his words very carefully, if he didn’t want to scare her away, with too much, too soon.

“Rumor is, Captain Pembroke’s got his eyes on a big prize. Something bigger than anything we’ve ever attempted.”

“You want to steal another crew’s prize? The Vulture’s one, at that?” Gina frowned. “Do you know the kind of shit that would spur in my business? In yours? Not to mention – why the fuck should I care which one of you two brings it home? I stand to gain the same.”

Holt sat down, in order to be eye to eye with his partner. It still felt insane to him, the power that Gina held in this place. But he knew that he had some power in his hands, too.

“With such a big prize in his grasp, do you honestly believe Pembroke would give you a single piece of profit? He would leave Ellis and keep the whole of it to himself. He’s a ruthless man.”

“Then what are you suggesting?”

“That you help me steal it from him. I don’t have the resources to fight two ships at the same time, but you do. If you loan me enough gun power to succeed, you and I will have the biggest shares.” He paused. “Well, you, myself, and someone else.”

“Who?”

Holt smiled.

“The liaison I just so happen to have in The Vulture’s crew.”

Gina seemed to consider this for a moment. It was impossible for Holt to make anything of the expression of her face, as he was rather bad at reading other people, but he knew he’d presented some solid arguments. That the simple idea of a fortune so grand they could start a real, respectable business, without ever having to worry about the law, was enough of an ideal on its own that it seemed impossible to refuse. This was most probably the kind of opportunity one like Gina Linetti wished for at night. The kind of opportunity that presented itself only once in one’s lifetime.

“I understand your hesitation,” Holt still said after a while, knowing Gina would have to think about it some more. She wasn’t one to make rash decisions. “I will leave you to consider it for the night.”

Holt stood up to make his leave, the legs of the chair making an ugly creaking sound on the wooden floor. He started walking away, before suddenly remembering something, and turning back around.

“Will you meet us tomorrow, at The Wrecks, when the sun starts to rise?”

“Yes,” Gina nodded. “Thank you.”

***

So close to the shore and the morning after a storm, the wrecks smelled of fish and piss and rot, all drenched in the horrid humidity of the air. The place had gotten its name because of its shallow waters and sharp-edged rocks all over, rendering any ship or boat who mis adventured there into wreckages. Looking around, one could see many remains of such misfortunes.

Jacob Peralta walked among such remains, feet almost sinking into the wet sand, the thoughts in his head damning Boyle for bringing him to such a stinking place in the early hours of the morning. There was nothing here but small mammal carcasses and passed-out opium freaks.

“You’re aware that I haven’t slept much last night, right? I would much rather go to my hammock to re-think my night over with Sophia, than be here with you.” 

Peralta said this as he stepped over a bunch of algae, wrinkling his nose at the sight. It was almost ironic, how much he hated the sea.

“ _Shh_  – will you?” Boyle sounded annoyed, walking not far ahead of him. “Trust me. This is big. We want to hear this.”

Peralta groaned.

“What  _is_  this?”

Boyle once again looked around their perimeter, in an almost frantic manner, before answering. He looked nervous.

“A meeting. Between Jeffords and – “

“The whore?!” Peralta suddenly seemed very excited. Boyle rolled his eyes.

“No! With  _Rosa Diaz_.”

Peralta gasped.

“Rosa Diaz?!”

Ellis wasn’t so big an island that Peralta had never seen her around, but never once had he had the guts to speak with her. She was a legend, rumored to split the guts of anyone who dared confront her, and she gave off an air of madness, of rage and of pure hatred, when she walked around, always with her hat either on her head or in her hand, the tip of her sword clanking with the metal on her boots. She was part of a merciless crew, too. With brutes like Pembroke and Pimento in the mix, they’d gotten for themselves a reputation almost as bad as Holt’s.

“I  _know_ ,” Boyle said. “They should be here somewhere.”

Right as he uttered the words, both Boyle’s and Peralta’s ears picked up on the sound of someone approaching; the slight clatter of keys hanging from a belt, the soft thumping of footsteps in the sand. Peralta turned his head around to see.

His eyes grew impossibly wide when he realized who it was.

“Holt is here,” he whispered as he turned back to his friend, and they both hurried to hide behind one of the big rocks. Once Holt walked past them, they slyly followed him, until they reached a group of people.

“Took you long enough,” Rosa said to the Captain, as he was the last one to arrive. Peralta was surprised to see Gina Linetti there, too. What the fuck was going on?

“Can someone explain what the hell is happening, now?” Jeffords sounded annoyed, and angry, and impatient. Peralta felt he could relate.

“We have a plan,” Holt started. “To make us the richest men in Ellis.”

That seemed to prick the quartermaster’s interest. Still, the man stayed silent, waiting for the rest.

“You all have heard of Lord Victor Santiago?” Rosa said. “Spanish duke. His wealth is beyond what we can imagine. And rumor is, he’s sending a ship, the Urca, for a small  _voyage_  in São Luís.”

Gina interrupted.

“How do you know all this?”

“The Captain told me,” Rosa answered. “He kept the rest of our crew in the dark. But he thought he could trust me.”

“Go on,” Holt urged her.

“Right,” Rosa said. “All we need now to make our move is your approval. The plan is this. I’ll give Holt the Urca’s schedule. The locations. The Blue Falcon will get there faster than The Vulture ever could. Then, the crew can leave most of everything. The gunpowder. The silk. The jewelry. Don’t give a shit about it all. That way, by the time our sails even appear in the horizon, you’ll have plenty of time to bring the  _real_  prize aboard.”

“Which is?” Jeffords asked, still on guard about it all.

“Lady Amy Santiago.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please keep in mind that I know jack shit about nautical terms

Amanda Santiago was sick to her stomach with Spain.

“Not too close to the _borde_ ,” Sir Marquez said with his thick accent and bored face, clearly annoyed with Amy’s enthusiasm. As soon as they’d set foot on deck, she’d lifted the edges of her night dress and fled to the ship bow’s railings. There, she grasped the thick wood of it, almost feeling the boat working under her hands, but certainly feeling the sea wind far from gently caressing her face and having flocks of her hair fly off the loose bun at the nape of her neck. Some of it caught between her lips.

 “Miss!”

Amy ignored her escort. She simply hadn’t had the time nor opportunity to take in the view when they’d embarked. Tensions were high in the streets these days. That’s what her father had said: “Tensions are high in the streets. You will leave a few hours before dawn.” Which Amy knew really meant: “Everybody hates my name. They would kill you.” So, it had been during nighttime when Amy was rushed aboard, only to then descend further into the darkness of her quarters below. Precautions, they’d said. They always had to take precautions.

Now, she stared at the ocean, the long waves having their ship sway back and forth along with the melody of the wind in the sails, as if Neptune, God of the Sea, was personally asking her for a dance. Amy had only ever danced in ballrooms before. 

“But look at this view! It’s amazing!”

“You speak like a Englishwoman,” Sir Marquez only said in return.

“I read a lot of books.”

Amy finally glanced behind to smile at him, before she tipped off her shoes. She’d dreamed of the open water all night. But not in a scary way. She’d dreamed about it the same way she dreamt about most things, with an immense sense of curiosity and hope for lack of restrictions. These days, nothing seemed more pleasing to her than laying afloat atop a bed of water, drifting further and further away. Sometimes, when she was unable to find sleep, she imagined exactly that, and wondered what kind of troubles she could come across, what kind of shores she could be washed upon; free, at last.

Her mother would have thought her crazy for it. There was pride in keeping up with tradition, and in seeking safety. God knew they’d lived through enough. Why strive for more trouble?   

But her mother, rest her soul, was long gone, and Father had finally agreed to send her on a small vacation, a _voyage_ , with the excuse of learning some things abroad. Amy strongly suspected he was simply in a hurry to get her out of the house for the summer, but she certainly wasn’t about to refuse a vacation, no matter her father’s possible ulterior motives.

Amy swung one leg over the taffrail, as the sailors called it (she’d read about that too), and then swung the other, sitting knees and thighs clenched over the barrier that usually separated the ship’s crew from the often mercilessness seas. Sir Marquez panicked almost instantly, as he always did, swearing in Spanish and stomping over, but Amy wasn’t listening, only staring at her feet dangling above a thirty-feet drop to calm, blue waters. She didn’t think the fall would kill her. Would it?

There was no more time to think about it. The sea was calling for her, and Marquez would have hold of her in an instant. So, Amy planted the naked heels of her feet onto the edge of the ship and stood up, before pushing herself off the boat with all her might, diving into the ocean.

The fall didn’t kill her.

***

There were three simple things that were absolutely and fundamentally true aboard the Blue Falcon, no matter how, or where, or when Holt decided to sail. Three simple things that were almost engraved inside the brains of all and every crewman.  

First was that brothers always came first, and, accordingly, that all brothers were equal. A common misconception about pirates was that all they cared about was gold, and perhaps a bit of worldwide glory. Of course, it was undeniable that these were not lies per say, as fortune and recognition held a big part in every pirate man’s daydreams, but they were not exactly what they strived for. What they strived for, in fact, was far more intimate. It was family, a place to belong; even if that place was a small hammock inside a ship full of drunk, sleeping men, or a little room in a tavern filled with other commonly lost souls.

Second thing was that you should never question orders in time of battle. The logic behind it was simple. Although most crews always tried to have all voices be heard, and to bring forth a sense of equality which lacked in their previous lives, if one were to succumb to panic and suddenly decide to go against direct orders from the Captain when, for instance, the ship was being boarded, this one man would be putting the entire crew’s survival at risk, going as far as possibly screwing up the strategical plans. Simply put, this essentially meant: trust the fucking man your crew voted for.

Finally, the third and last thing every single man aboard the Blue Falcon knew, was that Jacob Peralta never lost a bet.

It was their last night in Ellis before they were set to leave in hunt for the Urca. Peralta sat at a small table near the bar at Linetti’s tavern, facing none other than his quartermaster, Terry Jeffords; a big, black, intimidating man. 

“The rules are set, then?” Jeffords asked, sporting an annoying grin on his lips, and the many people who surrounded them all _Ay_ ed and cheered. “A drinking contest in its simplest form.”

Peralta was already drunk off a couple shots. His words slurred a little.

“Right,” he said, leaning forward, one elbow resting on the table. “We start on th’ count of three. You stop drinking, you’re done. You hurl, you’re done. Winner gets eighty pieces.”

Jeffords’ grin grew wider.

“Easiest money I’ll ever make.”

“It’s hardly fair,” someone declared right after it. “Have you seen the size of you? It’s no surprise you can hold down more liquor than him!”

“Don’t be so sure about that!” One of the men behind Peralta said. “Last I heard, love has gone and made him soft!”

Peralta laughed.

“I heard something like that too,” he said to the people around them, and then, raising an eyebrow, with a challenge in his gaze, he directed his next words at Jeffords, “Is it true?”

There were five full pints of beer placed in a neat row in front of Jeffords. He took one of them in his hand.

“Love gives me a reason to beat your pasty ass.” He smiled in that wicked way of his, and when their little audience stopped shouting and cheering, he added, “I wonder what jewel I might buy her. Oh, maybe some silk? Or a new hat.”

“Screw you!” Boyle shouted from where he stood in the front row, near Peralta. “He’s going to fuck your whore with the money he makes tonight!”

That earned a crazed reaction from the people around them, but Peralta hit his friend in the arm, then shook his head. He wasn’t going to do that. Boyle was just awful drunk. Jeffords was their quartermaster, after all. He had a little respect for him.

“Shall we?”

Boyle was the one to do the countdown, banging on the table as he did so, and when he shouted the last number, Peralta let the beer flow through his open mouth and throat, never stopping until he saw the clear bottom of the glass. When he reached for the second pint, he saw Jeffords had already started on his, but it only had him redouble his efforts. Some of the liquid leaked from the edge of the glass onto his chin, down his neck, but not nearly enough to disqualify him. He drank and drank until he had to take a deep breath at the end of his second drink, and then he drank some more. It felt like drowning (not that he’d ever drowned before). But it was good. Exciting.

He finished his third one before Jeffords, banging his empty glass on the table, and earning him a couple slaps on the shoulders and a whole lot of his name being yelled around him. Then, he grabbed the fourth. Jeffords was a bit surprised, he drank slower for half a second too long. Just enough for Peralta to gain a serious lead.

He did struggle some to keep everything down, and there were a lot of bizarre noises coming from his stomach, but in the end, he still won. Jeffords was getting old, after all, and he himself had been chugging the drinks like they were water and he was a dying man in the desert.

Jeffords choked on his last mouthful of beer when he realized that he’d lost, but he stuck to his word, and gave Peralta eighty pieces from his old bag. The people around them cheered for him before they quickly enough all went back to their own business. Only Jeffords and Boyle stayed, sitting at the small table that was now sticky, covered in overflowed beer.

“Ah!” Peralta yelled, raising both arms in the air in celebration of his victory. “More beer!”

“No, no,” Boyle grabbed him by the arm and had him sit down. “You’ve had plenty.”

“But I love beer.”

Jeffords laughed.

“That’s it for me, kids,” he said. “Jacob, I can’t wait to see your face in the morning. That’ll be worth every piece I gave ‘ya.”

“Well – seeing your face when you _lost_ was better!”

It was in that moment, soon after Jeffords got up from his seat, slightly wobbly on his feet, that Gina Linetti came down her stairs. Boyle had been talking to him about a new recipe or something other, but Peralta had his eyes fixated on the girl, as she was stopped by many people wanting to talk to her on her way to the bar.

Sometimes, Peralta had a hard time believing this was the same girl he’d grown up with. They’d shared their childhoods playing with rocks and sand at the beach while their fathers were away on business trips, and now, it was Gina taking care of business. Ever since her mother’s death. She was but eighteen when her father had left her alone in his grief, with nothing but a couple slaves and assistants at her disposal, and a whole Island to take care of.

It had been hard, Peralta had spent many nights bringing her food and offering her his shoulder to cry on, but now, she rarely needed his help anymore. No, she was clearly fine on her own, making plans with his Captain _and_ Rosa Diaz to steal some wealthy girl for ransom. If anything, she’d become a better pirate than him.

“Boyle!” Gina said now, as she got close to their table. “Tell your fucking cousin that he can’t come here anymore! He ruined one of my best rooms!”

“All your rooms are shitty,” Peralta laughed. “Fuckin’ dirty sheets and rats and cockroaches.”

Gina slapped him over the head.

“Shut up, or I’ll ban you too.”

“See! This is what power does to a person!” Peralta was practically yelling to Boyle. “You spend your whole life helping them and being there for them and this is all the thanks you get!”

“You’re drunk,” Gina said to that. “Fucking wasted, even.”

“ _But_ eighty pieces richer!”

Boyle raised his drink to that.

“To winning bets against Jeffords!”

Peralta started laughing then, much like a mad man, and so it took him a moment to register Gina had placed a careful hand on his right shoulder.

“Come up later? We should talk.”

“What?”

“Sober up a little,” she said, and then she turned to the bar, coming back with a glass of water. “Then come up. Alright?”

“Alright.”

 

 

When Peralta knocked at Gina’s door, an hour or so later, he was tired, but much more sober. He imagined Gina wanted to talk to him about tomorrow’s plans. God knew Holt hadn’t said a word to anyone yet, and that he was probably going to do so barely a minute before the fight. It was clearly his way of doing things, keeping the crew in the dark for as long as possible. It seemed their Captain didn’t trust much of anyone.

But Gina trusted him.

“Come in,” she said, and when she saw it was him, she smiled. “Good. You came.”

He gave her a short nod of acknowledgement, before sitting down at the chair facing hers.

“How could I refuse direct orders from our pirate queen?”

“No royalty here,” she rolled her eyes. “But it’s funny you should mention that, ‘cause soon, there will be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tomorrow won’t be a typical hunt. You’re going after a ship, the Urca. Except Holt won’t be looking for gold, or barrels of goods.”

Peralta widened his eyes, faking confusion and surprise, while still keeping his mouth shut, giving her a signal for her to continue.

“We have good knowledge that someone very valuable will be aboard that ship. A person that the right people will pay us a lot of money to get back home safe.”

Gina paused, taking a sip of her drink, as Peralta asked who it was.

“Miss Amanda _Amy_ Santiago. Her father is a Lord, a very wealthy one.”

“How did you convince Holt to do this? He doesn’t usually like taking part in the human trade.”

Gina gave a short laugh.

“Convince him? He’s the one who brought me the idea,” she said. “Plus, we aren’t fucking enslaving her. No, he sees it as a way to secure a future for all of us here in Ellis. I couldn’t help but agree.”

Peralta considered her words, running them over in his head, until a thought suddenly occurred to him.

“So, why are you telling me all this? What do you want from me?”

Gina leaned forward on her desk, looking him straight in the eyes.

“I know they are your brothers, but your crew is known to be… reckless. There are bad men with you, who will certainly go against orders if it means they can get their hands on some rich lady.” There was a lot of disgust perceptible in Gina’s tone. “I can’t let that happen. Her father won’t pay us if he realizes we’ve scarred and damaged his daughter for life. I need _you_ to not let that happen.”

“You want me to protect her from my own crew?” He said. “I do have some power over them, but, Jesus Christ, they’ll probably threaten to fuck _me_ if I don’t let them have _her_!”

“Find a way! Please,” Gina begged. “If you don’t, all this will be for nothing.”

Peralta considered her argument.  

“Fuck. I hate you. You know that?”

“I hate you too, darling,” Gina said, a huge grin splattered her face, as she got up from behind her desk to shake his hand, and then give him a hug. “I owe you a favor.”

“Good.” Peralta said, and before he left, he turned around to tell her, “I’ll remember that!”

 

As he went to bed that night, shivering under his thin blanket and the cool night air, Peralta pictured in his mind a wealthy Spanish girl aboard a ship, slowly taking her jewels off and brushing long locks of her hair, before she climbed inside her bed, swaying along with the waves. He imagined the peaceful and quiet life she must have lived up until now. Up until tomorrow. She had absolutely no idea of what was coming to her, and Peralta realized, seconds before falling asleep, that as he was to play a gigantic part in the course of her life, perhaps she, too, would alter the way things were, and have always been.

 

 

For Peralta, death didn’t exactly smell like decay, as most men would’ve described it. He didn’t see it as blood flowing from slit-open veins, nor did he picture a head being smashed to the ground, although he was indeed familiar with both types of scenarios. He was far too used to the weight of a sword in his hand and the distinct smell of smoky gunpowder coming from one of his pistols. He didn’t mind it so. It was the price to pay for freedom.

But what then did death smell like? Death smelled like him waking up and spewing his guts out in a barrel next to his bed. Death smelled like the thick fucking smell of fucking vomit after a night drinking too much beer.

He groaned and pushed the barrel away from him as he wiped his mouth with almost the entirety of his forearm. When he could breathe again, he laid back in his bed, and he continued thinking about death. He thought about the oily black paint he always rubbed under and over his eyelids before a fight, he thought about the rope of small animal bones he wore around his neck, and then, sometimes, he thought about his little sister.

The early years of the Queen Anne war had been difficult for many. Peralta didn’t live in a pretend world where he believed he’d been the only one to be hurt by the dramatic events. Many had died, and that was the way it was. But, what happens to a man when he has to face the starving body of a child, one he loves so dearly? What happens to a man, when he watches the light, the innocence, the joy, slowly fade away from those eyes, more each and every day? What happens to a man when he watches his little sister fall asleep in the crook of his arms, never to wake up again?

A man loses his sense of forgiveness. Because there were many things Peralta could forgive England for. But that? He couldn’t fucking bear to.  

And so, he was going to wear black around his eyes and bones around his neck if it meant he could scare and kill and steal from the people who had already taken so much from him. If that made him a villain, then so be it. He knew many of the people in Ellis felt the same.

And just like many other men, Peralta now had to get up and head to the bay, for yet another day of tiring, exhausting work.

He got there late, per usual. It had Holt stare down at him from up above, the wind blowing in the laps of his coat, a determined glint in his gaze. Peralta smiled and waved at him, much like a child would, even though he could barely see anything but his silhouette because of the sun glaring in his eyes.

“Oy, Captain!”

Holt’s figure disappeared almost instantly, and Peralta laughed as he went about climbing the rope. When he finally jumped aboard, he felt at home.

There was always something exhilarating in the air when the crew was preparing to leave shore. The men were thrilled, laughing among each other, but Peralta guessed most of them were trying to repress the fearful thoughts that always came to mind when they left Ellis. Were they going to survive the voyage? The battle? The way back?

“I need three men!” Peralta yelled, him too repressing the dreadful thoughts. “We gotta tie some knots!”

Three men did come over to him then, but so did Holt, who approached with a frown on his face, and disapproval in his tone.

“Something wrong?”

“Na - just want to make sure everything’s proper. We don’t want the rigging to snap if we find ourselves a storm out there.”

“Do it fast,” Holt said. “We leave under the hour.”

“Aye, Captain,” the four men said, all at once, before they grabbed their gear and went to work.

Forty minutes later, Peralta was out of breath, sore near his thighs and his hands irritated red from the ropes. He went to the railings and rested his forearms atop of it, leaning on it with all his weight, and watched, as Ellis stretched itself further and further away, becoming nothing but a dot in the horizon, and then.

Nothing.

Nothing but the sea.

 

 

“Sails!”

The voice came from above, where one of the men was perched on the mast. They’d been sailing for three days, now. Going on four. The crew hadn’t been happy to learn they were only chasing after a girl ( _A girl? A fucking girl?_ ), but they eventually warmed up to the idea, once Holt fired one of his pistols in the air and stopped all yelling and attempts at protesting. Then, they really listened. They understood. This “fucking girl” was worth much more to them than any other cargo they could be taking off that ship.

Now, however, Holt didn’t take out a pistol, but his spyglass.

“It’s her,” he said. “Right where Diaz said she’d be.”

The men behind them cheered, just as Jeffords came up to the upper deck.

“How many guns?” He asked.

Holt looked through his glass again.

“Around sixty. She’s a Galleon. Big, but slow. And the winds are with us.”

“So, we catch up?” Peralta asked, already feeling the nerves in his stomach.

“Hell yes we catch up!” Jeffords turned to the crew. “Alright, shitheads! We’re going after her!”

There was a kind of method to the disorder that followed. Peralta loved this part; the chase, the anticipation. Watching the crew get ready for a fight. It seemed there was nothing quite like it to bring a bunch of grouchy and brutal thieves to work together. The yelling of orders and the canon balls carried down to the hull; the pistols loaded and the swords sharpened; the body paint and the scarves and the knives around everybody’s belts. Every single thing carried the sound of death.

But once they were close enough that Holt gave the order to raise the black? A profound and tense silence always fell over the ship, all of the men suddenly sunken deep in thoughts of home, of family, of lost brothers killed in fights much like these. But Peralta had done this long enough to know it was nothing but the calm before the storm. The deep breath before the plunge.

With Holt behind the helm and Jeffords taking care of the crew, they managed to come up against the enemy’s broadside, not without any struggle, but easily enough that it almost felt like little to no time had passed between then and when they’d first spotted the sails on the horizon.

“Incoming!”

Peralta dove to the ground, wood debris flying above his head as he pressed his palms to his ears, trying to drown out the deafening sounds of almost fifty canons being fired at once. Once his ears stopped ringing he crawled on the floor until he reached a wall to sit back against, and saw that some of the men were already going across.

It was then that a simple, single thought hit him. A thought that had him jump to his feet almost instantly, ignoring all fears, and run directly across one of the boards that hung dangerously between the two ships.

_He had to find the girl. Before any of the others did._

 

***

They were already down in the hull when panic arose up above.

Amy had been in her little room, writing in her journal, something about how tired she was of being treated like a fragile doll by all the men aboard, and Sir Marquez had been smoking from his pipe near the windowsill. Amy didn’t think much of it when the muffled voices from the men upstairs grew louder (sailors were known to be somewhat violent among each other, after all), but Sir Marquez was already up on his feet, tearing her away from the desk, knocking down her inkwell in the process, and forcing her to go hide in a remote corner of the ship, behind a barrel of tobacco and a sac of potatoes. Then, he ordered her not to move, and said that he’d be back in an instant.

Amy could do nothing but wait, and watch, from a distance, the ink spill on her pages and drip down to the floor. What could possibly be going on? The sun outside was shining and the weather beautiful. It couldn’t be a storm. Sir Marquez had obviously gone up to seek information, but Amy felt utterly helpless, hiding in her corner like this, and all for a threat that wasn’t even certain yet!  Of course, her escort had been trained to keep her safe at all costs, but this all seemed pretty excessive.

She’d just gotten up on her feet when her man came back. Armed. 

“Piratas,” he said.

Amy’s breath caught in her throat. “What?”

“Piratas! They come to steal and kill!”

Sir Marquez came closer as he took out his sword, pushing her down and the barrel away so he could sit on his knees in front of her; protecting her.

They stayed like this for a while, Amy’s breathing shallow and her mind racing a thousand miles an hour. The fear she felt was crippling, like nothing she’d ever felt before, and the sounds of the men up above struggling to keep the chase going did not help to lift her spirits one bit. This was not what she’d had in mind when she’d left home for this voyage. She’d thought the trip would be boring.

She screamed when their canons fired, covering her ears with shaky hands, trying to hold back her tears. She was stronger than that. Better than that.

Pistols were being fired by the dozen, screams of agony and cries of courage almost drowned by it all, and so, it didn’t take Amy much to realize they’d been boarded.

“Don’t be afraid,” Sir Marquez whispered. “Don’t let them win.”

As he said so, someone started banging on the door which separated them from the chaos. They were trying to kick it in. Moments later, too soon, it was done.

Amy tried desperately to not make a sound. Maybe they wouldn’t find them. She couldn’t see much in the darkness, but she knew it was a man, just by the way he carried himself. He tossed a few things to the ground, looked inside and over a couple of barrels. The closer he got to finding them, the harder it was for Amy to hold still. Her guts felt like they were tied in impossible knots. Sir Marquez’ knuckles were turning white from holding his sword so tight.

The man started whistling.

“Lady Santiago?”

She held her breath. How did he know her name?

Just as she thought this, Sir Marquez abruptly came out of the shadows, screaming and charging at the pirate with all his might. Amy’s entire body was shaking at this point, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the fight.

“ _El bestia_ ,” he said to the man, as the swords clashed against one another, and Amy tried biting the inside of her hand in an attempt to repress the sobs that threatened to escape from her throat, but there was nothing to be done to hide the distressed, high-pitched cry that sneaked its way past when the pirate shot Sir Marquez right between the eyes. The body fell to the floor in a loud thump, like a heavy rag doll, and Amy whimpered, dragging herself further into the darkness of her corner. This was the first time she'd seen a man die. The first time she'd seen a _friend_ die. 

The killer only sighed.

“Shame,” he said.

And then, looking straight at her. 

“Hello, there.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Leave a comment?? pretty please


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